Birgit Wunsch

Birgit Wunsch is a German vocalist and improviser whose work joins spoken text, melodic fragments and non-idiomatic musical interaction. Exposed early to atonal singing through her mother, the classical vocalist Edith Urbanczyk, she later studied jazz singing at the New School for Social Research in New York. Language and the changing possibilities of the voice became central elements in her musical practice.

She leads Wunschmusik, a trio with reed player and vocalist Edith Steyer and guitarist Alberto Cavenati. The ensemble moves between spontaneous sound, words, abstract melody and compact songs, using humour and sudden contrasts alongside freer vocal experimentation. Their recording Muss Atonal Eigentlich Witzig Sein?, documented in Berlin in 2019 and 2020, brings this approach into a chamber improvisation setting.

On Creative Sources, Birgit Wunsch is credited on Wunschmusik (CS729). The album brings her vocal improvisation into dialogue with Edith Steyer and Alberto Cavenati.